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The big star of the weekend was Lance Storm, as he formed an all-Canadian team with Kevin Steen to defeat Davey Richards and Chris Hero on Night One, but then lost to Hero the following night in a singles match. Both matches were said to be very good and according to people who have seen Storm's post-match promo (which I have not), he seemed to suggest that this was his last match. If that's true, sounds like he went out on a hell of a pair of matches and gave ROH the honor of having them in their ring.
Also, Bret Hart and Ric Flair made appearances on separate nights. Flair pretty much did what he was expected to: he did an autograph signing, did a quick promo in the ring, and then bounced. Bret pretty much did the same thing, but is booked for several more appearances in ROH over the next few months in Chicago Ridge, Boston, and New York City. I'm sure they have some kind of angle with Bret in mind, but they didn't start it at DBD7. I can't say I blame them for being wary after their experience with Flair and how he came in with a ton of hype and ended up bailing on them, but so far I haven't heard anything bad about Bret's interactions with anyone, so hopefully this will work out a little better for ROH than the Flair experiment did.
Moving on, Nigel McGuinness suffered a stinger during his four way main event on the first night against Austin Aries, Jerry Lynn, and Tyler Black when he slipped during a Cradle Piledriver attempt from Jerry Lynn and apparently came down wrong on his head, lost feeling in his extremities for quite a while, and according to the live report, took quite a long time to get out of the ring after the match was over. Nigel was held out of action on the second night, but thankfully was later determined to be okay and was cleared to wrestle.
I feel bad saying this, but Nigel has become one of those guys who, whenever you hear he suffered an injury, you a)aren't surprised because the injuries have piled up pretty quickly, and b)you cringe because the injuries have usually been pretty serious and it tends to be the same sorts of injuries, which makes you believe that eventually the injuries will stop healing properly. He's tried to be a trooper and work through the injuries wherever he can, but ROH has smartly been very careful with him and held him out of action whenever they deemed necessary. I don't blame them for doing so at all, because the last thing you need is Nigel wanting to be a hero and getting hurt worse by working hurt, or even hurting someone else because he's not at 100%. I'm glad this one turned out not to be serious, but I applaud ROH for pulling him from the second night just to be on the safe side.
Kenny Omega had been campaigning to get a shot at the ROH World Title but ended up not getting it at DBD7. Instead, he pinned Aries in a tag team match which, coupled with his pinfall win over Aries last time they swung through Canada, and you see that Omega has built a pretty strong case for a title shot. If I had to guess, I would surmise that he would get that shot next time they head north of the border, which I believe will be in November. I love the long term booking here, because even though Austin Aries' main focus is on Tyler Black and Nigel McGuinness, you see slow burning side stories like Kenny Omega working his way into title contention. It's great because when you do things like this, it builds this whole world of interlocking relationships and interactions that you can keep coming back to and build off of down the line. It's really smart booking.
Speaking of ROH World Title contenders, Davey Richards won a Gauntlet Series to earn an as-yet unscheduled future shot at the title. Hey, I'm all for it: I think Davey Richards is the man in ROH right now, and even though I wouldn't expect him to get the title, I think he and Aries can have a really good match, as they've already had a couple good ones together a year or two back. Obviously Davey's focus right now is on the American Wolves, but there's no reason he (or Eddie Edwards, for that matter) can't be strong singles contenders at the same time.
There were also some pretty major surprises, as the Super Smash Bros scored a major upset over Kevin Steen & El Generico. The Smash Bros have made a moderately big splash in ROH over the course of the last few months, but I didn't expect them to win this match. I don't expect this to signal a major push for them, but it does show that they're a team that ROH plans to keep around for a while and maybe do something with down the line. This is what I was just talking about with stuff you do and then can come back to and build on down the line. In fact, this reminds me a lot of how Steen & Generico first got over with their match against the Briscoes at the Fifth Year Festival.
Something that totally caught me off guard was Bison Smith suffering two losses this weekend, including his first ever pinfall loss in ROH in a tag team elimination match to Colt Cabana, and then losing via DQ to non-ROH regular Frankie The Mobster the following night. I don't know who Bison pissed off, but I was really surprised to hear about these losses and I have to wonder, given how scarce he's been around ROH after a really strong debut earlier in the year, how much more we can expect to see of him in ROH period.
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But now with Death Before Dishonor VII in the books, we turn out attention back to Philly for the next set of HDNet tapings this coming weekend, with several matches already having been announced.
Probably the most intriguing match announced for the first night will see the Briscoes take on Kevin Steen & El Generico in a #1 contender's match for the ROH World Tag Team Title. These two teams have a long and storied history with one another, with the Briscoes usually winning, but Steen & Generico winning the last two matches before Mark took his hiatus to get knee surgery. With Mark back in action, it makes sense that they'd want to get this on HDNet as soon as possible. While Steen & Generico are already familiar to the HDNet audience, they haven't seen much of the Briscoes yet, so I'd expect a win here for the Briscoes would be the right thing to do to get them over as a team with the TV audience.
Also of note is a huge six man tag team match that will see KENTA, Bryan Danielson, and Roderick Strong team up to take on Chris Hero & The American Wolves. This match will probably center around Hero and KENTA, who will meet in a singles match on the second night of tapings. This is similar to Hero's matches with Lance Storm recently in Canada, but I expect the outcomes to work in reverse here, with Hero getting the win in the tag match (probably pinning Strong) and then losing to KENTA in a close match the next night.
Two members of the Embassy will be in prominent matches the first night as well, as Jimmy Rave takes on the Necro Butcher and Claudio Castagnoli faces Brent Albright in a cage. These sound like great matches and all, but they're probably just going to be another stop in the ongoing feud between the two sides. I'd expect at least one member of the Embassy, probably Rave, to pick up the win via heel shenanigans.
Also, Austin Aries has announced that he will defend the ROH World Title at the taping, but we have yet to hear exactly who his challenger will be. Knowing the type of character Aries portrays, I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up “randomly†selecting some total scrub, then ending up getting a much more competitive match than he expected before inevitably getting the win.
I already talked about Hero-KENTA, but the second night will also feature a Tag Team Honor Rumble, with the winners earning a future shot at the ROH World Tag Team Title. Interestingly, this match includes current champions the American Wolves, which presents the possibility that they could pick up the win and get out of having to defend the title against any of the other teams. The match also includes the Briscoes and Kevin Steen & El Generico, so we could be looking at a situation where whichever of those teams that loses the straight tag match on Friday picks up the win here to keep them even. There's also the chance that a fourth team will come out of left field and pick up a surprise win, with the most likely candidates in this case probably being the Dark City Fight Club or the Young Bucks by my estimation. Also, D-Lo Brown will take on Roderick Strong in a special challenge match that will probably see D-Lo do precious little (again) and probably see D-Lo get the win via nefarious means unbecoming of such a seasoned veteran (again).
Speaking of ROH On HDNet, a quick programming note: starting this coming week, ROH On HDNet will move to Mondays at 8pm, unofficially leading into Raw, which starts at 9pm. This is similar to how ROH piggybacks off of Wrestlemania by running shows in the same city to draw in the fans who are waiting around for the big show to start. I think it's a smart move, and hopefully we'll see if it leads to an increase in viewers.
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Now I'd like to turn my attention to Dragon Gate USA, fresh off what was said to be a very successful first show at the former ECW Arena in Philadelphia. From what I hear, there was a ton of great stuff on this show, beginning with a well-produced highlight video to get the crowd fired up, and then the action kept them going for the rest of the evening. Word is that the Young Bucks were the stars of the show, looking like a million bucks in their win over CIMA & Susumu Yokosuka and then cutting a great postmatch promo. Dragon Kid and Masato Yoshino had a good match designed to build to rematches at future DGUSA events (which we'll get to in a second), and Naruki Doi and SHINGO tore it up in the main event. It sounded like a great show and I really wish I could attend, but it looks like I'll have to wait until September 4th when the PPV (entitled Enter The Dragon) airs.
But with that first show in the books, Dragon Gate USA now turns their attention to their second event, which will take place on September 6th in Chicago. Two main event matches have already been announced, as Open The Brave Gate Champion Naruki Doi will defend against Bryan Danielson, and SHINGO will take on Davey Richards. It's pretty well known that Gabe Sapolsky had a huge main event push planned for Davey Richards before he was let go by ROH, and I'm really interested to see how Richards is used in Dragon Gate USA. I think it'd be really unique to see him booked as a main eventer on the tag team side in ROH, and at the same time used as a main event singles star in Dragon Gate USA. I definitely expect Davey to get a very strong push in DGUSA, and would not be surprised to see him go over on SHINGO in Chicago.
As for Doi and Danielson, I look at this as a match 100% designed to get Doi and the OTBG Title over. I'm sure there's not much of an expectation that Danielson will get the title to begin with, but Danielson is a guy who has a long history of busting his butt to get people he works with over, and is known for being very, very good at it. I can think of at least five guys off the top of my head that he made just during his run with the ROH World Title. That's what I expect out of this one, because to a lot of people Danielson would be coming in as the strong favorite just because Doi doesn't have that kind of exposure here yet. I think the match will see Danielson throw everything he has at Doi, but Doi will keep surviving everything and pick up the win. Not only will the win make Doi look like a million bucks, but Gabe is definitely big on symbolism, especially the symbolism of the longtime former ROH Champion coming into DGUSA and failing to win their title.
Two other matches have already been announced, the first of which is the second match in the Dragon Kid-Masato Yoshino series. This is obviously going to be played up as one of the first major rivalries in DGUSA, and these two are kind of like a modern day Rey Mysterio and Psicosis in their style and long-running rivalry. Dragon Kid won the first one, so Yoshino is probably going to pick up the win here to even them up heading into the third match at the November event, which we'll get to in a little while.
Also, a tag team grudge match featuring stars from CHIKARA has been announced, pitting Mike Quackenbush & Jigsaw against Gran Akuma & YAMATO. This match stems from the eight man CHIKARA match on the debut show, and I have to admit that I haven't seen very much of the CHIKARA guys, but from what I have seen from their short stay in ROH a couple of years ago, they have a really fast paced lucha-esque style that fits perfectly into the similar Dragon Gate style.
Finally, Brian Kendrick, fresh off his release from WWE, will be making his debut at the second DGUSA event, and I think it's interesting to see that he wound up there before ROH. I would guess that a lot of ROH fans started to wonder if and when he'd wind up back in ROH, especially given that several former ROH stars have found their way back to the company recently. I would still think it's reasonable to expect him to show up in ROH sometime over the next few months, but it did come as a bit of a surprise to hear that he'll be appearing in DGUSA first. This to me is another sign that even if DGUSA and ROH aren't directly competing over exclusive use of these wrestlers, they're at least competing in the sense that they want to show how they can use certain talents better than the other.
One final note on Dragon Gate USA: the format for the tournament to crown the first Open The Freedom Gate Champion (basically, their American championship, I guess) has been announced, and it will see four first round matches in the first half of the 11/28 show back in Philadelphia, with the winners going on to an elimination match in the main event, the winner of which will be the first champion. I know it's way early to be making any kinds of predictions for this tournament, but I have this feeling Davey Richards is going to win the tournament. For one, it would make sense for an American to hold the title, and as I said earlier, Gabe was really behind Davey toward the end of his stint in ROH, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Gabe put the title on him to prove that he was right about wanting to give Davey a run at the top of ROH.
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That about does it for me today. One last thing before I go: I'm in the process of converting all my wrestling tapes to DVD, but now I'm left with a bunch of VHS tapes I need to get rid of. If anybody's interested in taking a look at what I've got, shoot me an email at stupwinsider@yahoo.com and I'll send you a list. And with that, I'm done for this week. Take care, and see you all next time!
Stu Carapola can be reached at stupwinsider@yahoo.com.
